BLACK INK SOCIETY {Sci-Fi Thriller} #Wattys2016

Part 4,1: Matters of Inconvenience

Juli 26th, 2025

One year and three month before the scoop

She did what she always did to calm herself. Counting the holes in the wall. Mentally solving parametric equations. It had always been this way - higher maths was like meditation for her. Since she had been a little girl, she had distracted herself with variables and values whenever it was uncomfortable to feel. Maths was pure rationality. Her mind worked more logical when she was thinking about mathematical problems rather than the trouble ahead of her.

Irene occupied a chair in front of the office, legs crossed, her fingers impatiently drumming on the arm rest. Trouble was ahead indeed. The officials hadn't come out of Garett's office since almost an hour, and altough being quite eloquent, Irene's editor-in-chief  was no man of many words. So it was the government officials talking, and she wasn't expecting good tidings.

It slowly began to dawn on her that, if things went on like this, she was going to loose the job she loved. The only job she would ever be capable of doing. If it hadn't been such a grave situation she would have enjoyed the irony - with her qualifications she could have been a successful lawyer or high-ranked manager by now. And here she was, working for an average London newspaper that fought an already lost war against subsidies and policies.

Change had come slowly, creepingly, and it had caught the media industry with their pants down. The new public information act had been adopted only a few month ago and everything was going downhill already.

The door handle moved.

Irene straightened her back, anxiously staring at the door.
"...and thank you. I genuinely hope we can overcome the disagreements of the past, Mr. Jardine," said the man in the suit appearing in the doorframe. His dialogue partner simply nodded and held the door open for his visitors to leave. He had his lips pressed to a thin, white line, and as soon as the government officials were out of sight his face took on an openly grim expression. Negotiations obviously hadn't been going all too well.

The editor gestured her to come inside, and as soon as Irene closed the door behind her he dropped into his chair and started massaging his temples as if to fight a massive headache.
"How did it go?" Irene asked. She realized it was a fairly unnecessary question, considering the emotional state of her counterpart. Still, for the sake of courtesy, she had to ask.

"How did it go? Hmm. Let me say this much."

The editor lifted his head and looked at her with weary eyes. He didn't seem to get much sleep lately.

"Whitehall isn't too pleased about our cover story. For some reason, they don't want it printed, and because we obtained the information under rather semi-legal circumstances I don't have much hope for it, to be honest."

"Garett..."

"I'm sorry. I know you put a lot of effort into the Hygiapharm thing, and truth be told, I actually thought the story could push our sales up far enough to stay in business. But let's face it. It's over."

"We can't give up now!" She replied heatedly, "Not after everything we've done to see this story published. It was hard enough to get the source to trust us, and now that he risked his life to hand over the documents you want to back down?"

"Look." The editor leaned across the desk. "I despise the information act as much as you do, but laws are laws. We can't simply do what we want, alright? I have to think about the rest of the staff as well."

Irene laughed disbelievingly.

"Laws are Laws? What the hell happened to you, Garett?"

She pointed to the square bright-yellow sticker on the back of his screen, reading I will not be silenced, the protest slogan against the implementation of the public information act. The new policy was every journalist's worst case scenario, making the research of secret information illegal and source protection basically impossible. Although technically it was still allowed to publish - with the research being criminalised, there was nothing to report about.

"Life happened," Garett snorted, "I have two kids, and I'm not very keen to see them grow up from behind bars. I already told you, I don't like the whole thing either. But sometimes..." He sighed. "Sometimes you just can't do anything."

Irene shook her head. She couldn't quite believe what she'd just heard.

"Don't you understand? This isn't just about us! The Hygiapharm documents may be the biggest leak in the history of the pharmaceutical industry, our readers need to know the truth!"

Her gestures were getting more and more aggressive. She felt she was losing her temper, but couldn't stop it. "We're journalists! It's our job to provoke Whitehall!"

The editor sighed. "This isn't some ordinary scoop. They sent their officials to threaten me. There are interest groups involved in this matter we cannot deal with."

"Garett, this isn't just politics anymore. We're talking about human experiments here! We cannot simply keep that to ourselves."

"I don't think that's for you to decide," Garett said, plainly. "Look, you're the best investigative I have out there and you know I appreciate what you do. But when I last checked I was the one being the editor around here."

"Oh, thank you for reminding me," Irene retorted cynically, "Then maybe you recall that I'm the one keeping you in business? The one catching all the big fish for you? Without me, you'd be jobless by now!"

"I can't, for goodness' sake!"

Garett jumped to his feet. He seemed to be losing his patience, Irene noticed. A rare phenomenon for someone as calm and circumspect.

"Don't you get it? If we print this, the ministry will shut us down and charge every soul in this building with treason, including you!"

Irene gave a cold smile in return. She would not be the one loosing control today.

"Fine then. You don't want to print it? Somebody else will. Someone not as spineless as you are. Because if you don't have the guts to print a story that concerns every citizen of this country, then I'm sorry, but I cannot work with you any longer. I quit. Farewell, Garett."

She stood up calmly, turned her back and left the office without looking back.

"Wait, I didn't mean to-"

The door clunked shut behind her and Irene, who wasn't named Irene quite yet, walked down the hallway with the whole editorial department staring at her as she left.